Johnny Harris, chief executive of Charlotte commercial real estate firm Lincoln Harris, was instrumental in developing his family’s sprawling dairy farm into what became SouthPark. Over four decades, the area grew to be one of the state’s largest business centers.

He went on to develop other high-profile and pioneering projects in the area, including Phillips Place in SouthPark, which is generally regarded as the region’s first mixed-use center; Piedmont Town Center, which was among the first to combine offices, retail, restaurants and condos in the same development; and Ballantyne, which extended Charlotte’s growth to the S.C. line.

Harris worked for years with former partner Smoky Bissell to develop SouthPark and Ballantyne. In 1992, Bissell and Harris amicably parted to pursue their own ventures. Harris launched The Harris Group, which became Lincoln Harris, an affiliate of Lincoln Property Co., in 1999. Bissell, as head of The Bissell Cos., developed Ballantyne Corporate Park after buying Johnny’s and brother Cameron’s stake in the land in the mid 1990s.

Harris is much more than a developer. He’s been Charlotte’s biggest cheerleader and salesman at various stages of his career. A big personality in any setting, Harris is at his best when he’s telling the story of his hometown. It’s a story he’s told many times as he’s pitched the merits of a Charlotte location to CEOs of Fortune 1000 companies across the country. As a primary mover in Charlotte’s boom years during the decades leading up to the Great Recession, Harris guided many events that helped the city emerge on the national stage.

Working with Ken Thompson, then the CEO of Wachovia Corp., Harris not only convinced the PGA Tour to add a tournament at Quail Hollow Club, but they also got a date in the heart of the spring calendar. Harris then ensured every detail of what is now the Wells Fargo Championship was crafted around the needs of the players. The event is rated among the best in golf outside the majors and draws a star-studded field.

Harris also served on the board of US Airways Group Inc. when its hub here was rapidly growing. He recently became an advocate for legislation to shift control of Charlotte Douglas International Airport to a regional authority and away from the city.

The recession has calmed development activity for Lincoln Harris and the market as a whole, providing some time for Harris to reflect on his career at the Charlotte Business Journal’s CREQ Live event in March. Following are edited excerpts from his remarks at that event:

How did you get into real estate?

I had the great good fortune to have wonderful parents. My grandfather was a governor, senator and congressman who loved land. The area that SouthPark is now was part of the largest dairy farm in North Carolina in the early ’50s. My brother was going to go into the insurance business and work with my dad. It didn’t seem like a good idea for us to go into the same business. I ended up having a feeling about the land, and we developed 7,000 lots if you go back and look at the area around Cotswold, Foxcroft, Barclay Downs and those areas. And then you go out by Quail Hollow and as you get out closer to Ballantyne. All that was part of the farm.

I worked construction every summer in various aspects — stormwater and laying pipe, and one summer putting down asphalt. Worst job I’ve ever had in my whole life. So I’d done a lot of everything, and from that I had a respect for the land. My father and mother always used to talk to us about leaving it better than we found it. We were very fortunate.

Any early lessons?

When we developed Barclay Downs, I was in college and in the summer I was selling lots, and my father paid me $50 for each lot I sold. I thought that was more money than I’d ever make in my whole life. I think I made $1,800 one summer, and I went to the beach with all that money and thought I was really hot. It turned out if he had paid me 5%, which was the going commission rate, it would have been a significantly larger number. My dad was not stupid, I can tell you that.

A year ago, you said the recession was over. How do you feel about the economy today?

It’s easy to let the dysfunctionality in the political arena today affect the way we look at the economy. But the fact of the matter is, here in Charlotte, even since the beginning of 2011 we started to see real changes that have come to fruition. Wells Fargo now has significantly more people employed in Charlotte than Wachovia had in 2007. Bank of America is now back over the number they had in 2007.

When you look at this city, there are two things that drive it. No. 1 is intellectual assets — the young people who want to come here and be a part of Charlotte. Jobs chase the intellectual assets. You couple that with the airport — and I know you’re not going to let me get through this interview without talking about the airport, so I’ll wait on that.

We’re so very fortunate. If you want to be to be in the real estate business in this country, you’re here. Don’t even think about it. If somebody’s trying to tell you to move to Atlanta, don’t. They’ve had their comeuppance. We’ve gotten through the worst economic environment since I’ve been alive, and we’ve survived. And we’re going to continue to survive.

You were on the board of US Airways for how many years?

Ten years. Worst business I’ve ever seen. If you take all the money that’s been made in the airline business since its inception, it’s still not enough to cover the losses. The business is a net loss in its history.

Did that spark your interest in the airport and the idea of an authority?

That started me off. During that 10-year period, the industry was mostly going down. I watched Pittsburgh be a hub, then not be a hub. I watched American make National a hub, make Raleigh a hub and they went away. And then all of a sudden we had a hub here in Charlotte, and it’s thrived. Just because it’s thrived for the last 30 years doesn’t mean it’s going to thrive for the next 30.

I was always aware the way to make people come and do business with you is to have the lowest cost for the best value. What our airport has been over the years is the best value at the lowest cost of any airport in the country. It costs less to put somebody on an airplane in Charlotte than it does anywhere else in the world, but in particular in this country and on the East Coast. So if you’re going to build a hub, where are you going to put the hub? It’s cheaper to put them in the airplanes here, so they come here. There are all kinds of stories about companies that look at this airport and decide to come here. The new American is going to continue to beef this up.

Do you think the authority will happen?

I don’t know. We have to protect the airport. We have to be the low-cost provider to continue to grow. No one’s taking away Charlotte’s airport. They’re not moving it. All they’re doing is saying let’s make sure that we operate it as a business and not as an entity that’s subject to political nuances. Maybe the authority isn’t the only way. I don’t know. I look forward to the continued discussion. But I do think there are people who can step back from it and say we need to protect the single-most important economic engine the state, the region and the city has.

Your firm has been affiliated with Lincoln since 1999. Do you think the landscape has settled in terms of local firms partnering with larger organizations?

Everybody’s looking to do business in a way that helps them improve the quality of the service they provide. When I came along, I was getting killed. I was growing the service side of our business and trying to create a platform that would allow us to be not just a regional firm, but to do something other than development, because development was not very good. When we started it, I needed a national platform for us to continue to do work for General Electric, Alltel, Interstate/Johnson Lane and some other brokerage companies we worked with.

Lincoln gave me that national platform. Over the last year, we’ve probably hired 700 people, and all of that is in our corporate-services group and in the facilities business. We’ve gone from being a gunslinger developer to someone that gets up and worries about snowstorms and ice storms and hurricanes, because if the ATM isn’t working, and a 65-year-old lady is trying to get cash to buy her groceries, and I’m responsible for that ATM, I take it personally.

Are you interested in new development?

Oh sure. The reason we’re not doing development right now is because there hasn’t been a whole lot of it. The pent-up demand is slowly but surely getting there. All of us here hope that we’ll be back doing some things soon.

What do you think about the talk about Ballantyne seceding?

I think that’s ridiculous. The people talking about it haven’t taken the time to really look at the cost of becoming an independent community and having to provide police, fire, all the services they’re talking about. It’s a one-dimensional decision.

But if they’re going to do it, Smoky (Bissell) will make a great mayor. I’d love to run the campaign.

Which of your developments are you most proud of?

Sometimes we pushed the envelope. A little project like the Specialty Shops on Morrison Boulevard — there wasn’t anything like that in Charlotte at the time we did it. You jump over to Phillips Place, and we had to work with Walter Fields and his team at the planning commission to change the law to allow us to build it. There was no zoning for it at the time. Piedmont Town Center is one we take a lot of pride in.

What’s your stance on incentives to lure corporate relocations?

Within reason, I’m 100% behind incentive deals. Anything you do that brings people here that make $100,000 a year and pay taxes, shop in the stores, become positive forces and add to the intellectual asset is great. I think they stole MetLife. When I say stole, pay them whatever they needed — we needed to get them here. It’s another great win for Charlotte.

Nobody wants to say it, but there are two things that sell Charlotte better than anything else — the airport and the quality of life, which is the people, the neighborhoods and, yes, professional sports.

We’ve got to do what’s necessary to tether the Panthers here. I am a small owner of the Panthers, so I definitely have an interest in this. We need to keep the NFL in Charlotte. And we don’t need to compromise the visitors authority either. That’s something the politicians can worry about.

What’s the best business opportunity that you passed on?

At the time Smoky bought the land (for Ballantyne Corporate Park), we could have stayed in. I think it worked out for both of us that we went in different directions.

We had the greatest working relationship. One of the greatest experiences in my life was having the chance to go in every morning and be excited about what we were doing and have somebody who was a little different than me, and certainly more cerebral and smarter, who I could try out wild ideas on. Leaving that part — the 400 acres he bought — has been great for him, and it forced me to go a different direction. I wouldn’t have done a lot of the developments we’ve done. It’s all worked out for the best.

What advice would you give someone who wants to get into development?

I think the main thing is to understand that development only works if there are proper sales. And so learn the business. You can build something at the appropriate cost. You can dot every I and cross every T, but if you can’t sell it, then it ain’t going to work. Be aware of the market and get people around you who can sell. I came from the sales side. I understood what it took. I understood making cold calls and being told no and being rejected. I’ve got an ego as big as all outdoors, but one of the reasons for that is I’ve been beat up. I’ve lost more ways than you could ever lose. But at the same time, you just keep coming back. If you can’t sell it, development doesn’t work.